TV Review: USA’s ‘Dig’

FBI agent Peter Connelly, played by Jason Isaacs (The Patriot), stumbles upon a 2,000-year-old international conspiracy during a murder investigation in Jerusalem. The action-thriller, billed as a 10-episode event series, also features Anne Heche (Men in Trees), Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) and David Costabile (Breaking Bad). Dig, created by Heroes’ Tim Kring and Homeland’s Gideon Raff, bows Thursday at 10 p.m on USA. The following are reviews from TV critics around the web, compiled by B&C.

“There’s little rhyme or reason to the way the series jumps between locales and doles out its prevalent plot twists, and that kills most of the desire to see how these disparate narrative threads will eventually converge.”—Keith Uhlich, The Hollywood Reporter

“Tension is good, but the longer you build up any mystery, the more shocking and clever it dang well better be [...] The religious overlap — both Christian and Jewish extremists appear to be involved; the word is still out on the Muslims — lends "Dig" a certain resonance and depth, just as the location work in Jerusalem gives it authenticity. But in the end, it's about a man who needs to save the world to save himself. Or maybe it's the other way around.”—Mary McNamara, LA Times

“Other than the fact that Dig is a dopey name for a new show, since it baits critics to say how much they don’t dig it, USA’s new international thriller is fun to watch and makes almost no sense whatsoever. As the saying goes, who could ask for anything more?”—David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle

“Those less inclined to accept on faith — either due to the auspices or a lack of patience — that Dig is leading somewhere can be forgiven for rolling their eyes at another show that promises to threaten ‘everything we believe in.’ For such skeptics, to borrow a line from Raiders of the Lost Ark, USA might be digging in the wrong place.”—Brian Lowry, Variety

“This issue of stretching a simple conspiracy plot that would brilliantly service a feature film into a multi-episode series is the biggest flaw contained within Dig. The problem isn’t that the concept of the show’s conspiracy is a bad idea, it’s rather about the format the idea is presented in. Dig lacks the necessary additional layers beyond the main conspiracy that would allow it to grow in interesting ways.”—Merrill Barr, Forbes

“This might all be intriguing on some level, but through the first three episodes, Dig was harder work than it needs to be. While the mystery might work as a fast-paced thriller, Peter’s personal problems muddy things up. Perhaps there is a grand scheme to tie everything together, but so far it’s loose ends.”—Rob Lowman, LA Daily News